Apex court stays order in Karnataka cop’s case (Lead)

New Delhi, June 1 (IANS) In a relief to former Karnataka police chief Shankar Mahadev Bidari, the Supreme Court Friday stayed the high court order of May 28 holding as illegal his appointment to the top post.

Bidari had moved the high court challenging the March 16 order of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) quashing his appointment as head of the state police.

Bidari moved the high court for a second time after the apex court April 24 sent the matter back to it.

CAT had quashed the appointment of Bidari, holding that the entire material about him was not placed before the Union Public Service commission when it prepared a penal of three senior most officials for the appointment of state DGP and IGP.

The high court had dismissed the plea by Bidari challenging the high court order.

An apex court bench of Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice C.K. Prasad, while staying the May 28 order of the high court, left it to the state government to appoint anyone as state police chief.

The court stayed the high court order after it was told by senior counsel Gopal Subramanium that there was nothing adverse against Bidari during his service career.

This included alleged atrocities committed by some personnel of the Special Task Force on tribals during a joint operation against sandalwood smuggler Veerappan.

He told the court that Indian Police Service officers were governed by the All India Service rules and the high court had held that there was new jurisprudence to deal such cases following an apex court judgment.

Subramanium told the court that both in the report of Justice Sadasivam and that of NHRC there was no prima facie adverse comments against Bidari.

The counsel said that after ordering compensation to the tribal victims, the NHRC closed the case as there was nothing to proceed against Bidari.

When the court inquired if there was anything against Bidari in the Justice Sadasivam report, Subramanium said: “Not even a word.”

Subramanium told the court that the joint task force of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka police was headed by Tamil Nadu’s Walter I. Dawaram and Bidari was his deputy.

Subramanium told the court that Bidari was appointed the state DGP and IGP in November 2011. Under the apex court guidelines in Prakash Singh case he has two years tenure that would end in November 2013.

The senior counsel told the court that reinstatementof Bidari as DGP of the state police would not unsettle anyone as the earlier officiating DGP A.R. Infant retired May 31.